Many long established organisations will, at some stage, reach the point where moving beyond the intent of simply refreshing existing processes becomes a necessity for optimising operations according Sarah Edwards who heads up CoreLogic Client Operations.
She said, “These days, we’re fortunate that emerging technologies, such as robotics, open up better ways of doing things – and allow us to achieve efficiencies that ultimately improve the end-to-end experience for both customers and staff.”
Although robotics has been gaining traction in the business world for some time, there are many misconceptions around its capability. A common one is that BOTs – which execute the commands they’ve been programmed to do – will make humans redundant. ”Since we started our robotics journey at CoreLogic, our goal has been to expanding the capacity and the responsibilities of what a human can do, complementing them with robotics, via the automation of simple & repetitive tasks,” Edwards said..
So how have we gone about this?
Importantly, Edwards found that embedding robotics at CoreLogic has always been part of a business-led strategy. “We started by identifying processes suitable for automation and going straight for any ‘low-hanging fruit’ to achieve immediate benefits. This gradual approach helped us to build on our foundations while at the same time maintaining service excellence for our customers,” she said.
Benefits realisation took place very early on. For example, one of the first data verification processes, which originally took two hours to complete manually, now takes only six minutes using a BOT. That’s a significant time saving when you consider we repeat this process hundreds of times a month. It also means we can redeploy people to other tasks, which require human involvement, so they can add value in a different capacity.
Edwards said, “BOTs and humans both have their capabilities, and that’s why we view a two-pronged approach as the next step in driving efficiencies.” CoreLogic is now exploring the use of attended BOTs, where the human and the bot work hand in hand, taking the legwork out of tasks that still require human involvement for the final expertise based decision. Ultimately, Edwards and her team want to create an environment where CoreLogic staff have the best technology at their fingertips, and are empowered to make smarter and faster decisions. Creating a partnership between people and BOTs will go a long way towards achieving this vision.
To successfully embed this way of working, Edward said it’s imperative to treat robotics as an integrated change program rather than an isolated process improvement. “For the uninitiated, the concept of robotics can be hard to grasp so take time within your organisation to educate thoroughly, banish misconceptions, and allay fears. Bring people on the journey with you through broad engagement led by your CEO and executive team, and make sure everyone – not just operational staff – understands robotics is a critical and beneficial part of the customer experience journey,” Edwards said.
Source: https://www.corelogic.com.au/